Have you been approached about joining Monat as a distributor or “Market Partner”? Have you heard people say it’s a scam or pyramid scheme? If you are considering joining, read on to learn everything you need to about the company, its products, and its opportunity.

Founded

2014

Monat Leadership Team

If you glance through the list of leaders (below), you can see a big trend—3 of the top leaders are from the Urdaneta family, and other members are involved at varying levels.

Luis Urdaneta – Chairman & Co-Founder
Rayner Urdaneta – CEO & Co-Founder
Stuart A. MacMillan – President
- Previous CEO of Telexfree, a Ponzi scheme shut down by the SEC in 2014.
Thomas Hoolihan – SVP and Chief Legal Officer
Linda Lucas Padilla – SVP and Chief Marketing Officer
John Leitsch – SVP and Chief Information Officer
Javier Urdaneta – Chief of Staff
Chris Reshotkin – Chief Financial Officer
Jamie S. Ross – SVP, Research & Development
Natalie Johns – VP of Sales
Julie Garrison – VP of Commissions

Website

monatglobal.com

Annual Revenue

$200 million (2017)

History of Monat Global

There is nothing new under the sun, and that’s true with Monat. The company is owned by the Alcora Corporation and was originally established in 2001 as L’EUDINE Global, a multi-level marketing company that sells beauty and wellness products based out of Florida.

Monat Products

While Monat claims to be a revolutionary set up hair care products, what’s actually notable about the company is the sheer number of complaints from distributors and customers who have experienced severe hair loss and scalp irritation (much more information on this below). Monat products include:

Shampoo
Conditioner
Scalp Rejuvenation Oil
Hair Rejuvenating Vitamins/Supplements

Similar to other MLMs, Monat has not had its products tested by the FDA, which should concern any distributor who is considering joining. You may disagree with the regulatory structure in the United States, but any hair care company who wants to establish a legitimate business in this country will need to have its products tested by the government in order to be mass-marketable. It’s clear that Monat has no intention of doing this, and instead likes to highlight how its products are so revolutionary that the FDA and other agencies are actively trying to keep it from being approved. Here’s the message at the bottom of the website that is carefully hidden:

Monat Income Disclosure Statement

So the products clearly have issues that their customers have documented extensively on the internet, but is there an opportunity for Monat market partners to make money? According to Monat’s compensation plan document, a typical distributor should only expect to earn less than $2,000 annually. This doesn’t include any costs that market partners will incur going to and hosting events and purchasing products.

Like most multi-level marketing companies, Monat offers a variety of ways to make money based on your personal volume and the volume of products that your downline sells. There are also plenty of bonuses along the way, especially when you first get started. Of course, the most lucrative way of making money, like all pyramid schemes, is by recruiting other people to join as a distributor. You can read more about Monat’s compensation plan here.

Monat Customer Reviews

Customer reviews of Monat products highlight nightmare after nightmare, including from this former distributor who has filed a $225,000 lawsuit claiming that Monat products caused severe “hair loss and scalp damage.” In all of the reviews we’ve done of the MLM world, we have never seen this many document complaints by the Better Business Bureau which as of today is over 550.

Here are a few highlights (or lowlights) of customer complaints:

Legal Issues

You can see the complete list of Monat class-action lawsuits here.
Over 500 customer complaints have been documented by the Better Business Bureau, of which over 400 cite issues with the product/service.